PLEASURES OF READING
Francis Bacon wrote ‘Reading maketh a full man’. Who would not like to be full i.e., perfect. Perfection is the aim of man. He takes pleasure in being called perfect. Reading makes a man sophisticated and cultured. The more studious a man is the more civilized he is. He acquires knowledge. As Lala Har Dayal, the great patriot said knowledge is a vast orchard full of sweet fruits and flowers. The man who enjoys reading enjoys these sweet fruits. He can’t have a greater pleasure from any other source.
Reading newspaper is rather a craze to many. They derive the greatest pleasure from it in the morning hours. They relish it more even than the breakfast. Chit chat on the morning news is rejoiced by the people throughout the day. Spicy news is like hot cakes. Then there are magazines in almost all the languages which have material for the children, the romantic young men and ladies, the old men who would like to feel young and the ladies who would swim in the stream of fashions through magazines for the beaus.
Then there are people who do not want to think. They believe ‘the book thinks for me’. They read books to lessen their mental burden. They enjoy the romantic world of the writer. They wake with them to have pleasant in the rising sun and the sweet songs of the birds. They take a dip in the philosophic but romantic songs of Tagore. They may also push themselves to the land where God and man become one in the land of vedant.
Nothing is more pleasant to the young ones than living with the Superman or roaming in the fairy lands of Chandamama. They take pleasure in identifying themselves with the Spiderman or Mandrake. The religious people take pleasure in reading the Ramayana or the Mahabharata to achieve salvation. Through their reading they leave the sinful world and enjoy the bliss of the spiritual land that they fancy.